Sierra Club Screens Gardens, Jungles, Trash and Rats

With the current mega-glut of film festivals out there, it’s refreshingto find one whose aims are like none other. Where other film festivalspromote films, filmmakers, sponsors, arts organizations, and theindependent film industry in general, the Sierra Club Film Festival,which held its second annual event April 17-19, promotes issues. Preserving the environment, human and animal rights, conservation ofnatural resources, and otherwise enriching life on this planet are thepoints of this festival.

This year the Sierra Club brought in veteran programmer Steve Grenyo,who has experience in publicity and programming for the New York FilmFestival, New Directors/ New Films, and the Film Forum, to add filmsavvy to its activist objectives. I was brought in as a programmingconsultant and to help write the catalogue notes. Knowing little aboutthe festival or environmental issues, I was first hesitant but nowthrilled to have played a part in the event.

In Grenyo’s words, the festival’s goal is to “showcase films andindividuals who emphasize the ability for all of us to make adifference.” Jennifer and Leslie Schwerin’s humorously horrifying film“Talking Trash,” for example, introduces us to a problem that’s so closeto our daily lives, we can smell it. And the cure for the garbage glutrests in each of our households. Brian Danitz and Chris Zelov’senlightening “Ecological Design: Inventing the Future” introduces us todesign pioneers who offer concrete avenues to creating environmentallyfriendly buildings and cities. Shawn Cuddy’s “Voices of Women:Bernadette Cozart and the Greening of Harlem” illustrates how thisenvironmental progress can literally start in your own backyard. Cozarttransforms inner city vacant lots into gardens, providing food,recreation space, beauty and work to neighborhoods in need.

One Lower Eastside community garden that was recently bulldozed bydevelopers, the Chico Mendes Garden, was highlighted in Mark Chandler’s“The Garden,” which was screened Saturday night. The film was introducedby Jeffrey Wright, activist and editor of Cover Magazine, who wasfeatured in the film. Wright closed with a plea to the audience to makea pledge to “defend every blade of grass, to defend the gardens to thelast drop of blood.” He ragged on Rudy “Bulliani,” the destroyer ofcommunities, and howled, inspiring the crowd to howl with him.

The short was followed by “Rubber Jungle” by Bill Day and TerrySchwartz, two “camera guys” who fund their documentaries by shootingeverything from Jerry Springer to phone sex commercials. “RubberJungle”‘s a story within a story: it’s about how a couple of camera guysgo down to make a movie about the making of a movie about murderedactivist Chico Mendez (a studio production that was canceled after areported $8 million had been spent) and end up making a movie aboutChico Mendez themselves. The playful tone and casual narration make thishistorical documentary extremely accessible and also totally hilarious.I can’t wait to see what these camera guys decide to stick their camerasinto next.

Other festival highlights included Mark Lewis’s comical exploration ofNew York City’s rodent problem “Rat“, Ian MacKenzie’s “Cry of theForgotten Land” about the deforestation that is endangering local tribesin New Guinea, and Christopher Walker’s “Trinkets and Beads“, aninfuriating look at the indigenous people in Ecuador whose lifestyle isbeing threatened by oil drilling. Each evening film program was followedby a panel discussion about the issues presented in the films.

All of the selections might not have been great films in the aestheticsense, but all of them will wake you up, some even inspiring enough toget you on an airplane to go save the Amazon. If that isn’t greatness,what is?